Arise, O Jerusalem!

It seems that the Revised Common Lectionary - and apparently we use a version created specially for the Episcopal Church, which makes me wonder what's so "ecumenical" about having adopted it in the first place? - is in fact following fairly closely the 1979 BCP Lectionary for the Sundays in Advent, at least. Well, except that it goes mad with Canticles in Year C, as a replacement for the Psalm.

In any case, for Old Testament this week we have the choice of readings from Baruch or Malachi; who, though, could resist the gorgeous Baruch reading, which comes from Chapter 5, verses 1-9:

Take off the garment of your sorrow and affliction, O Jerusalem,
and put on forever the beauty of the glory from God.
Put on the robe of the righteousness that comes from God;
put on your head the diadem of the glory of the Everlasting;
for God will show your splendor everywhere under heaven.
For God will give you evermore the name,
"Righteous Peace, Godly Glory."
Arise, O Jerusalem, stand upon the height;
look toward the east,
and see your children gathered from west and east
at the word of the Holy One,
rejoicing that God has remembered them.
For they went out from you on foot,
led away by their enemies;
but God will bring them back to you,
carried in glory, as on a royal throne.
For God has ordered that every high mountain and the everlasting hills be made low
and the valleys filled up, to make level ground,
so that Israel may walk safely in the glory of God.
The woods and every fragrant tree
have shaded Israel at God's command.
For God will lead Israel with joy,
in the light of his glory,
with the mercy and righteousness that come from him.

I even like the NRSV translation of this reading! I'm going to check a few others, but this one certainly must do it justice, I'd think.  I've come to notice that I really am a huge Old Testament fan; there is so much I love in the Hebrew Bible.  Psalms, the Prophets, the Apocrypha - all the really old, ecstatic and mystical poetry that so appeals to me.  I think I'm going to try to learn Hebrew, in fact; I'd like to read these things in the original.

And as usual, I checked the chant propers for this coming Sunday (this more recent version, too) - and lo and behold, I find the lovely "stand upon the height" verse embedded in the Communio for Advent 2 (mp3):

Jerusalem surge, et sta in excelso, et vide
jucunditatem quae veniet tibi a Deo tuo.

Arise, O Jerusalem, and stand on high, and behold
the joy that comes to thee from thy God!

Giovanni Battista Martini and Heinrich Isaac have both apparently written settings of this song, says CPDL (which BTW is now a registration-required site). I believe this must be the Heinrich Isaac piece, and it is very beautiful indeed:



Here's another version, not mentioned above, by one Giacomo Mezzalira. Nice, too!



Interestingly, there is another version of "Jerusalem, Surge," one used in Holy Week - it's the Responsory II of the Tenebrae Responsories for Holy Saturday - which does exactly the reverse of what the reading above does! Here are the Latin and English translations from CPDL, which says the texts come from Jonah 3:6 and Lamentations of Jeremiah 2:18:

Jerusalem, surge, et exue te vestibus
jucunditatis; induere te cinere et cilicio:
quia in te occisus est Salvator Israel.
Deduc quasi torrentem lacrimas per diem et noctem,
et non taceat pupilla oculi tui.

Arise, O Jerusalem, and put off thy garments
of joy; put on ashes and sackcloth:
For in thee was slain the Saviour of Israel.
Shed thy tears like a torrent, day and night,
and let not the apple of thine eye be dry.

And Gesualdo and Benedetto Pesenti have written settings of this one. Here's the Gesualdo, sung by the Tallis Scholars (sorry for the mournful Holy Week-ishness of this, but I can't resist Gesualdo - or the Tallis Scholars, now that I think of it):




So here's what must have happened:  the author of the responsory (I'm sure this must be the correct scenario) used the Jonah passage to respond directly to the author of the Communion Song/Baruch, using the converse of the image.  Isn't that wonderful?   And of course, this is done throughout the Scriptures, too; everybody is constantly responding to somebody else across time and space through their writings.


And this is what I love - more and more, actually - about the Scriptures of late. There are long drawn-out conversations and discussions going on throughout them - poets speaking in rhymes and rhythms to one another, and ideas picked up centuries later and elaborated upon - and we get to watch from this distant country. It's really beautiful.

Universi, qui te exspectant

Universi, qui te exspectant is the Gradual for the First Sunday of Advent. Here's an mp3 of this chant, sung by the Benedictines of Brazil. Very, very beautiful.

Here's another wonderful version, this time from Giovanni Vianini's Schola Gregoriana Mediolanensis:



The text comes from Psalm 25:3-4:

1 Unto thee, O LORD, do I lift up my soul.

2 O my God, I trust in thee: let me not be ashamed, let not mine enemies triumph over me.

3 Yea, let none that wait on thee be ashamed: let them be ashamed which transgress without cause.

4 Shew me thy ways, O LORD; teach me thy paths.

5 Lead me in thy truth, and teach me: for thou art the God of my salvation; on thee do I wait all the day.

6 Remember, O LORD, thy tender mercies and thy lovingkindnesses; for they have been ever of old.

7 Remember not the sins of my youth, nor my transgressions: according to thy mercy remember thou me for thy goodness' sake, O LORD.

I'm not sure what this is, but it does use the same text, at least to start out with. And I like the Colby Chorale ("Men, Women & Tangos"), don't you?



Last year I published all the Introits for the Sundays of Advent; here's a video (unavailable last year) of the Advent I Introit, Ad te, levavi, which also comes from Psalm 25:



Here is a post about the hymns of the Advent Office, also from last year.

A blog worth checking out

And that blog is the somewhat dauntingly-named "The Hopeless Journey," which describes itself with this tagline:

The Hopeless Journey is my attempt to explore the entire history of western music, or at least the important parts of it... that we know about... and that I can purchase on iTunes in some form. As someone who listened primarily to popular music for the first 28 years of his life, I hope to provide a unique perspective on this music that so many of my generation have written off. There are gems to be found here, so come help me look for them.

An amazing amount of great stuff for lovers of early music and chant. Thanks, Traveler!

The Last Sunday after Pentecost

Hymn melodies for the whole year from the Sarum service-books does not list this day, in some traditions known as "The Feast of Christ the King," as a feast day.

There is good reason for that. According to this Wikipedia page, "Pope Pius XI instituted the Feast of Christ the King in 1925, in response to growing nationalism and secularism. In Pope John XXIII's 1960 revision of the Calendar, the date and title remained the same and, in the new simpler ranking of feasts, it was classified as a feast of the first class." So this is too recent a development to have been included in the medieval Sarum calendar.

And in fact, the 1979 Book of Common Prayer does not list this day as a feast day, either; it's simply "The Last Sunday After Pentecost" - the Sunday before Advent starts.

So, to celebrate this non-feast day, I will post part of this article from the newsletter The Angelus, by Stephen Gerth, Rector of the Church of St. Mary the Virgin:

The Episcopal Church does not call the last Sunday of the Church year “Christ the King.” In our Prayer Book it is simply “The Last Sunday after Pentecost.” Yes, our prayers and lessons are about the kingship of Christ. At Solemn Mass and at Evensong we will sing some of the greatest hymns on this theme. I think our Episcopal Church’s particular decision merits wider and greater appreciation.

Since its earliest days the Church has had a feast of the kingship of Christ. It’s Epiphany, which along with Easter, Pentecost and Christmas are the great ancient celebrations of the Church. Note that aside from Trinity Sunday, the liturgical tradition does not have thematic Sunday observances. Our celebrations are rooted in the historical events of Jesus’ life, death and resurrection. Our days and our lives find their meaning in his life, in his gospel.

The Christian community is plagued, world without end, not only by anachronism – reading the present into the past, it’s also plagued by amnesia – forgetting what has been. In origin, Christ the King wasn’t about Christ; it was about the pope. I have a hunch that some leaders of our Church remembered this as the 1979 Book of Common Prayer was being created.

In 1925, Pope Pius XI had yet to make the treaty with Mussolini that would turn the Vatican into an independent city state. Like all popes since the loss of Rome in 1870, he considered himself a prisoner of the Vatican. His encyclical Quas Primas proclaimed the celebration of Christ the King and fixed it on the last Sunday in October. The pope gave a very clear reason for its institution: to fight anti-clericalism. I think it’s fair to say that the liturgical reformers of the 1960s and 1970s quietly ignored its origins. They moved the feast to the end of the Church year with a focus on the time when God will be all in all.

This parish, like the Episcopal Church, stands for a particular theological and historical Christianity. We are certainly not perfect. But since I encountered the Episcopal Church and the Anglican tradition in college it seemed to me then, and still does, to embrace what is best of the Catholic and Protestant experience. Our commitment to Christ as Anglican Christians has survived monarchs, revolutions and civil wars. We found a way to end slavery. We are working to find ways to welcome all into the life of God’s Church. We continue to work for conversion, justice and freedom. Episcopalians care and give to help those who are hungry, to those who will never have the capacity in this life to take care of themselves. We try to tell the truth about what has been and what we believe God plans in his love for us. I am very proud to be an Episcopalian.

Lapidem

An interesting new find: Vocal Ensemble Gregoriana, from the Netherlands. "Gregorian chant based on tenth-century manuscripts and inspired by oral oriental traditions." Here's their rendition of Psalm 118:22-23:



Here's the note from the YouTube page:

Lapidem, quem reprobaverunt aedificantes, hic factus est in caput anguli: a Domino factum est, et est mirabile in oculis nostris.

Psalm 118(117): 22.23

The stone which the builders refused is become the head stone of the corner. This is the Lord's doing; it is marvellous in our eyes.

"Lapidem" is the second verse of the offertory "Benedictus qui venit" sung by Geert Maessen in the Amsterdam Obrechtchurch on June 17th, 2009.

Saint Gall neumes: tenth century, CH-E 121, p. 224 and CH-SGs 339, p. 113. Fluxus score: 2009, Geert Maessen, Amsterdam

Interesting to see, first, the old-style neume notation in the manuscript, and then the modern rendition of it. See "lelalilu"'s YouTube channel page for more.

Cheese or font?

You make the call.

"Father, in whom thy saints are one...."

Don't miss this lovely Evensong, sung earlier today, October 28, at All Saints Church, Margaret Street, London.

Angelus
Responses: Plainsong
Psalms: 148, 150 (Plainsong)
First Lesson: Isaiah 65 vv17-25
Office Hymn: Father, in whom thy saints are one (Veni redemptor)
Canticles: Walmisley in D
Second Lesson: Hebrews 11 v32 - 12 v2
Anthem: Timete Dominum (Byrd)
Hymn: Hark, the sound of holy voices (Deerhurst)
O salutaris hostia (French chant)
Te Deum (Solemn Tone)
Tantum ergo (de Severac)
Organ Voluntary: Fantaisie sur le Te Deum et Guirlandes Alleluiatiques (L'Orgue Mystique) (Tournemire)

Organist: Henry Parkes
Director of Music: Paul Brough.

Wonderful voices! And some gorgeous chant - especially that Office Hymn....

Anglican Chant, Part the Third

The Saint Paul Cathedral Choir sings Psalm 121:



As ever, from the wonderful Coverdale Psalter:

Psalm 121. Levavi oculus

1. I WILL lift up mine eyes unto the hills : from whence cometh my help.
2. My help cometh even from the Lord : who hath made heaven and earth.
3. He will not suffer thy foot to be moved : and he that keepeth thee will not sleep.
4. Behold, he that keepeth Israel : shall neither slumber nor sleep.
5. The Lord himself is thy keeper : the Lord is thy defence upon thy right hand;
6. So that the sun shall not burn thee by day : neither the moon by night.
7. The Lord shall preserve thee from all evil : yea, it is even he that shall keep thy soul.
8. The Lord shall preserve thy going out, and thy coming in : from this time forth for evermore.

New from Liturgica.com

Liturgica.com now has a video library, here, with about 10 different videos, some Byzantine chant, some Greek, some Znamenny chant.

The first group is "The Romeiko Ensemble, Performing at the National Library of Greece, Dec. 13, 2006"; the second is "St John Men's Chorale, Performing at Holy Virgin Mary Cathedral, San Francisco, 2008."

I can't embed these here, I don't think, so there's the link for you.

(A little bit) More about Ergo Maris Stella, verbi dei cella

In re: my previous post, I did find this PDF file online, which comes from the site of The Schola Antiqua of Chicago. The PDF is titled: "LONG JOY, BRIEF LANGUOR" and subtitled "The Anonymous English Quem malignus spiritus Mass."

The relevant section is notated thusly: "Alleluia (V. Ave Maria Dominus tecum) and Sequence: Ave maria…virgo serena." Ergo Maris Stella is taken from the Sequence (and as usual, I find myself attracted to Sequence Hymns, even without knowing it!). I've put the words to Ergo Maris Stella, verbi dei cella in bold purple in both the Latin and the English:

Alleluia
Ave Maria gratia plena
Dominus tecum:
benedicta tu in mulieribus.
Ave Maria, gratia plena,
Dominus tecum—virgo serena.
Benedicta tu in mulieribus—
que peperpisti pacem hominibus
et angelis gloriam.
Et benedictus fructus ventris tui—
qui coheredes ut essemus sui
nos, fecit per gratiam.
Per hoc autem Ave
Mundo tam suave,
Contra carnis iura
Genuisti prolem
Novum stella solem
Nova genitura.
Tu parvi et magni,
Leonis et agni,
Salvatoris Xpisti
Templum extitisti,
Sed virgo intacta.
Tu floris et roris,
Panis et pastoris,
Virginum regina
Rosa sine spina,
Genitrix es facta.
Tu civitas regis iusticie,
Tu mater es misericordie,
De lacu faecis et miseriae
Theophilum reformans gratie.
Te collaudat celestis curia,
Tibi nostra favent obsequia,
Que es Dei mater et filia,
Per te reis donatur venia.
Ergo maris stella,
Verbi Dei cella
Et solis aurora,
Paradysi porta,
Per quam lux est orta,
Natum tuum ora,
Ut nos solvat a peccatis,
Et in regna claritatis
Quo lux lucet sedula,
Collocet per secula.
Amen.

Alleluia.
Hail Mary, full of grace,
The Lord is with you:
Blessed are you among women.
Hail Mary, full of grace,
The Lord is with you—O serene virgin.
Blessed are you among women,
you who bore peace for humankind
and glory for the angels.
And blessed is the fruit of your womb—
he who makes us his heirs through grace,
so that we might be his.
But though this “Ave” —
So pure and sweet,
Contrary to the law of the flesh—
You, O star, through a new birth
Brought forth your offspring,
The new sun.
You stand out as the temple
Of the humble and the great,
Of the lion and the lamb,
Of Christ the savior—
Yet you remain a virgin.
You have been made mother
Of the bud and the dew,
Of the bread and the shepherd
You are queen of virgins,
Rose without thorns.
You are the city of the king of justice,
You are mother of mercy,
From the pool of impurity and misery
You recast one who through grace
becomes a lover of God.
You the celestial curia
together praises in song,
To You our services are devoted,
You who are mother and daughter of God,
Through You the pardon for guilt is offered.
Therefore star of the sea,
Sanctuary of the word of God
And dawn of the sun,
Door of paradise
Through which the Light is born:
Pray to Him your Son,
That He might free us from sins,
And place us in the kingdom of clarity,
Where the sedulous light shines
Through all ages.
Amen.

Here's the video again, from Psallentes:



The notes in that PDF from the Chicago Schola say, first, that:

The Missa Quem malignus spiritus is an anonymous English setting of the cyclic mass for three voices and remains one of the earliest known masses to be unified by a single plainchant melody. This mass is based on a responsory chant found in just one mid-fifteenth-century source. This source bears the rhymed office of John (Thweng) of Bridlington, a fourteenth-century English saint canonized in 1401 (d. 1379). The mass seems to have appeared a little more than a generation after his canonization. While this saint represents an obscure figure of ostensibly local renown, the Missa Quem malignus spiritus is found well beyond the English orbit, remarkably in the famous Trent Codices—one of the largest sources of fifteenth-century polyphony—as well as in a fragment from the city of Lucca. In this mass setting, the lowest voice sings the melody of the responsory chant, while the upper voices unfold two independent lines to form the polyphony. The rhythmic texture of the upper voices is extremely subtle and complex, and rhythm itself seems to be treated as something of a dissonance which is “resolved” at cadences. Melodic imitation is clearly audible between the two upper voices.

The section about Ergo, Maris Stella has this:

We supplement the Missa Quem malignus spiritus with four plainchants, which fall into their proper place in the Mass with one exception (the Marian antiphon Ave regina caelorum). The plainchant genres of Alleluia and sequence formed a splendid prelude to the Gospel in the medieval liturgy, and many of the most highly developed musical moments created by and for the medieval cantor appear at this moment. The Alleluia. Ave Maria was sung as early as the tenth century and probably represents the work of ninth-century Frankish cantors. The sequence Ave Maria...virgo serena demonstrates the new style of both poetry and music that emerged in the late eleventh and twelfth centuries. The poetry of the sequence is rhymed without being strictly metrical, and the music is shaped by the rhythmic flow and rhymed lines of the text. While this sequence originated in the south German sphere around 1100, by the fifteenth century it was sung throughout Europe.

It seems to me that the notes above are saying that the Sequence Ave maria…virgo serena does not necessarily belong with the Quem malignus spiritus Mass, but that it could possibly have been sung with it as a chant proper to the day, as the two separate pieces were being used around the same time.

But, at least that's a bit more information about this very pretty tune.

The Well-Tempered Clavier, Again

Awhile back, I posted this wonderful link that offers great audio, stunning video/animations to go with the music, and terrific analysis of all the fugues in both Well-Tempered Clavier books - and now I'll give you another.

Here's a site where you can download PDFs of both Well-Tempered Clavier books; each book comes in two parts (#1-12 in Part 1, and #13-24 in Part 2). All Preludes and all Fugues are included.

I've been meaning to go over to that other site, the one with audio and video, and thank that guy for doing all that incredible work - and I think I will....

"Illusions: What's in a Face?"

From Scientific American:

The Illusion of Sex

The Illusion of Sex, by Harvard psychologist Richard Russell, won Third Prize at the 2009 Best Visual Illusion of the Year Contest. The two side-by-side faces are perceived as male (right) and female (left). However, both of them are versions of the same androgynous face. The two images are exactly identical, except that the contrast between the eyes and mouth and the rest of the face is higher for the face on the left than for the face on the right. This illusion shows that contrast is an important cue for determining the sex of a face, with low-contrast faces appearing male and high-contrast faces appearing female. And it may also explain why females in many cultures darken their eyes and mouths with make-up. A made-up face looks more feminine than a fresh face.

That's just the first page; there are more "illusions," in other categories. Of course, I found this one particularly interesting!

HT Andrew Sullivan.

Ergo Maris Stella, verbi dei cella

A lovely Ave Maria, from the Belgian chant group Psallentes.



A blurb at the YouTube page says:

This is part of the gregorian chant prosa 'Ave Maria'. Listen while watching the same in the original manuscript (E-Bc 911, which is a cantorale from Girona). This is from the cd 'Llibre Vermell de Montserrat' RIC 260.

This is an obscure text, as far as I can tell; there's not much in English on the web about it. Much of what Psallentes does seems to be taken from rather obscure old manuscripts; I'm really looking forward to learning more about the pieces they are singing. Here's their terrific YouTube channel.

(Amusingly, there's a Psallentes Ladies, too, on their own section of the the website. Here's what it says about them there:

Making a striking début at the Alden Biesen ‘Day of Early Music’ in 2007, a female version of Psallentes has arisen from the original. Eight young female singers devoted themselves to the interpretation of the ethereal music of Hildegard von Bingen. This may lead to a CD of the female ensemble, to appear in 2009. Meanwhile the project ‘Gregorian chant for young female voices’ made a second appearance with ‘De Begijntjesprocessie’ (Procession of the Beguines) a programme dedicated to the Gregorian chant of the Beguines, originating from various Flemish beguinages in sources from the late Middle Ages.)

Very interesting to me, the thing about the Beguines; I have a strong interest in one of those women, the 13th-Century Marguerite Porete (burned at the stake for heresy, of course). The Ladies are actually how I found this ensemble to begin with, after coming across their gorgeous version of "O Sacrum Convivium."

Rachmaninoff's "Bless the Lord, O My Soul"

A gorgeous piece of music, from Rachmaninoff's Vespers: Blagoslovi, Dushe Moya (the text comes from Psalm 104):



The translation given at the YouTube page is this:

Bless the Lord, O my soul,
blessed art Thou, O Lord.
O Lord my God, Thou art very great.
Blessed art Thou, O Lord.
Thou are clothed with honor and majesty.
Blessed art Thou, O Lord.
The waters stand upon the mountains.
Marvelous are Thy works, O Lord
The waters flow between the hills.
Marvelous are Thy works, O Lord.
In wisdom hast Thou made all things.
Glory to Thee, O Lord, who hast created all!

Rachmaninoff also wrote a Liturgy of St. John Crysostom that includes "Bless the Lord, O My Soul" - but I do believe this is the version for Vespers.

Will look more into this and return with what I find. I honestly don't know very much, from either experience or reading, about Orthodox liturgy, but am trying to learn.

[EDIT: Our great friend Caelius notes in comments that "This Psalm is the standard opening of the Orthodox Vespers service and is considered in that tradition to be a song of Adam."

Thanks, Caelius.]

My (Ancient Athenian) Philosophy Guru

At least, according to this little quiz:

Your recommended philosophy-guru is ZENO OF CITIUM.

Key fact: He taught in a stoa, the Athenian supermarket, and hence founded the school of philosophy called Stoicism.

Must have: An interest in everyday life, for it is there that you learn life's big lessons.

Key promise: An ability to face anything, no matter how disastrous.

Key peril: To be "stoical" is to turn your back on passion.

Most likely to say: "If you have integrity, no-one can harm you."

Least likely to say: "Forget prudence! It won't help you anyway."

HT Fr. Nick.